On September 8, Heather Thomas celebrated her 66th birthday. She was well-known for playing the lead opposite Lee Majors in The Fall Guy and was predicted to have a prosperous Hollywood career.
But when the actor’s mother showed up on set during the production of the show’s finale, the gorgeous blonde rushed to the hospital, believing her father had an emergency.
When she arrived at the Santa Monica hospital, her family and friends told her that they were concerned about her and that her father, Leon, was doing well.
For the 28-year-old woman, whose hospital stay had completely altered her personal and professional lives, this was just the beginning of a new journey.
Read on to find out what happened to the pinup lady of the 1980s!
Heather Thomas followed her desire, possessing a natural beauty and talent similar to that of Farrah Fawcett and Heather Locklear.
At the age of 14, the girl hosted the Talking with a Giant discussion program on NBC, where she and four other teens interviewed celebrities.
Thomas, who is now 66, attended UCLA to study theater and film in order to further her career as an actor, filmmaker, and author. She appeared in the short-lived comedy series Co-Ed Fever (1979), the year before she graduated.
Assisting Lee Majors, who rose to international fame in the 1970s for his role as Steven Austin in The Six Million Dollar Man, the Connecticut-born actress received her first significant role in 1980 in the television series The Fall Guy.
As Jody Banks, the stuntwoman-bounty hunter on the famous action show, Thomas was adored by males who viewed her as a sex symbol, a term she admits she feels ambivalent about.
There was “obligatory condescension that goes with that,” Thomas told People. “You fit into the cliché of the blonde bimbo. But right then, I was just having fun.
Unfortunately, she was having too much fun with drugs, a habit that existed before she played Jody Banks.
She started consuming drugs to maintain her high grades in the sixth grade, which is when her drug history started. Thomas said, “I was taking acid and getting straight As.” I just thought it was incredible.
As her mindset evolved from a child’s to an adult’s, so did her drug use.
While attending UCLA, Thomas started using cocaine, and in 1981, a year after she began filming The Fall Guy, her drug addiction deteriorated.
As if she had to live up to her status as a sex symbol, the 5-foot-7 Thomas also became obsessed with weight and started taking Lasix, a diuretic that can cause excessive lethargy.
To offset the sluggishness, she took more cocaine to give her a boost in energy.
I was still getting used to the medication at first. I believed I was getting a fantastic bargain when I made my purchase. She said that cocaine had enabled her to work through the night and that she had never used it on the job site. Cocaine use is not allowed on sets. Performing it is no longer clubby. It’s just personal suffering.
Despite her claims to the contrary, a person close to the artist told People that her drug use was harming her career. The insider claims that “word was out on Heather.” “People knew about her problem.”
Thomas’s weight dropped from 125 to 105 pounds in between takes, and he was sound sleeping. “I was in a minicoma sometimes,” Thomas claimed.
After that, she passed out in front of Majors, who then called her mother and manager.
Following the conclusion of the series finale, her mother, Gladdy Ryder, a former special education teacher, appeared on the set of The Fall Guy to inform her daughter that her father was in the hospital.
After racing to St. John’s Hospital, the author of “Trophies” was greeted by family members and friends who were ready to accept her to the three-week drug program.
“It was a big relief to me,” Thomas said of that day. When she checked into detox, she also reported having swollen kidneys, scarred lungs, and pneumonia. “I wanted to stop riding this roller coaster.” If my family hadn’t intervened, I probably would have carried on living my life until I lost my job or died.
“I should have died three years ago, according to the doctors,” she added.
Devoted to her recovery, Thomas surrounded herself with individuals who would support her in reaching her drug-free goals and who shared her ideals. That was the first time 28-year-old Thomas met Allan Rosenthal, a co-founder of Cocaine Anonymous. She later married him, but in September 1986, she filed for divorce.
That same month, she suffered terrible injuries to both of her legs when she was struck by a car while crossing the street.
After going through detox, getting divorced, and having surgery to repair serious damage to one leg, Thomas went back to work, although in small TV show appearances. She has acted in films such as Cyclone (1987) and Red Blooded American Girl (1990), a Canadian film starring Christopher Plummer.
In the 1990s, Thomas started over after moving on from her past. She married Hollywood lawyer Skip Brittenham in 1992 in an attempt to advance her career. Thomas became the stepmother to his two children, Shauna and Kristina, and gave birth to her only biological child, India Rose, in June 2000.
“I had about 45 restraining orders out, and I was on everything from a toilet seat cover to an ashtray—and I was in love, and [then] had two little girls,” she told Reuters, explaining why she chose to put things on hold and write for a bit.
The Zapped! actor, who prioritizes writing, stated that stalkers’ repeated invasions of privacy, not a lack of roles, were what made her quit performing.
“I was experiencing severe harassment. I saw someone scale the fence with a knife one day. That was it; I had two little children that really needed to be raised. But I think that when I get older, people won’t irritate me as much.
Thomas is also an activist now, having previously been on the boards of the Rape Foundation and the Amazon Conservation Team.
Identifying as a feminist—a misleading label for a gender icon—Thomas explained the meaning of both.
“I obeyed orders when I was younger, but as I got older, I refused to make concessions.” I wanted autonomy and command. I received a property as a result, and I also gained the recognition I needed to get opportunities. It’s not always a negative thing to let others view your body. I don’t think I lied to myself. “I don’t think body shame is a part of being a feminist,” the woman said.
We’re happy that Heather Thomas got the help she needed and is now starting a lifelong recovery process, even though it’s very sad that she was unable to return to the acting industry.
Her portrayal as Jody Banks in The Fall Guy with the Six Million Dollar Man Lee Majors, one of the many incredible series from the 1980s, was one that we truly appreciated!
I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on Thomas’s recovery.
